Tag Archives: age

Gaining time, ages of it: That’s how she had begun to feel recently. It was no longer an anxiety driven chase of minutes, or breaking down her days into portions of obligations and thinking too far ahead; so far ahead that she would forget to observe the very happening of time — and herself in it: unfolding, expanding, altering, learning to love. The tension that came from her knowledge that she was lacking, losing time would settle at the medial edges of her eyebrows, making her forehead feel like a heavy awning. For years, she had worn the weight of time on her face; and while the losses surmounted, as they do in any life, she found herself at a deficit of time for mourning.

Larisa stepped out of the church. The city, still moving slowly after the snowstorm, was gradually waking. Older women carried netted bags with groceries from the bazar; the men smoked. The young raced, chased, took for granted stretches and stretches of time. The sun had been beaming down; and although it didn’t have the strength to thaw out the iced pavements yet, the smells of eventual spring could already be detected in the air. Everything was beginning to exhale. Larisa smiled:

But, of course, change would come! It always did! In her memory, there was no specific day when this awareness had happened in her, no event that — again, with time — revealed its lesson: that she wasn’t really living all this time, but merely waiting for her days to end, wasting them on worry, on an anticipation of her own expiration and on counting up her lacks. Growing tired, perpetually tired, she found herself lacking patience. How could her life force fade so early on? And she was terrified of it: to lose the joy of living would make a life’s uselessness more daunting. She didn’t want to live with that. And she was not going to lose the hope! No, not the hope; not the sometimes demonstrative belief of hers that people were prone to goodness; and that even though she could never expect it, kindness would make its presence known, and it would lighten up at least some events with grace. Oh, but she needed to — she had to! — believe that!

Watching the rush of morning trolleys clunk past her, Larisa decided to walk. The cold stiffness of the air entered her lungs, brought on an alertness. The kindness hadn’t slept a wink that night. And so, she continued to roam through her city, with books in hand: the city which she hadn’t made her home yet, just a place where she would watch her youth unfold; but at any moment, she could give it up, take off again, the gravity of responsibilities not affecting her yet; and she could chose any place (she could go any place, really!); and the mere awareness of such freedom made the heart swell with tearful gratitude.

In that state, while absorbing the city from the top stair of the library building, she had met him. It was the music, at first, streaming out of the rolled down window of his car. She stopped to listen to it: Chopin? Debussy? In the gentle strokes of the piano movement, the city glistened. She stepped down and resumed her walk.

“I was just thinking myself, ‘Am I ready to part with this Blok collection?’” He had gotten out of the car and was now leaning against the passenger’s window at the back seat. Larisa smiled: Blok — Russia’s golden boy of poetry — had made her girlfriends swoon all through college. She studied the man’s face for a glimmer of ridicule: Had he seen her leaving the building with half a dozen of hard-bound (cloth) tomes, half of which she had renewed, unready to part with the moods, the atmosphere they proposed? But if anything, the man was smiling at his own expense, bashfully and maybe even seeking her opinion on the matter. She considered it, then spoke carefully:

“You should try some early Akhmatova.”

“Too tragic,” he responded, “especially for the end of this winter.”

That’s it! Right there, she knew exactly what she meant! But for the first time, she did’t catch herself forced into a space of controlled flirtation from which she could observe — but not always appreciate — the effects of her presence. How can I hold all this space now, she thought; how can I stand here, not putting up the heightened facade of my sex?

She couldn’t remember if it had ever been this easy before. Aloneness would still happen, of course, even if this were indeed the evidence of her change. It wouldn’t stop, neither would she want it to. But now it united, linked her to the rest of humanity; and even in the isolation of the specificity of her most private experiences, she would understand so much; and in that surrender (if only she could manage to not lose herself in fear again), she was certain she would find kindness.

As far as I felt, I was still a fucking nobody: commuting to my graduate classes six out of seven days a week, on a 45-minute subway ride from the Bronx.

Sure, as any not-too-lame looking chick, I tried to upgrade my style with an occasional ten-dollar purchase from the H&M on Broadway and 34th. And I had even managed to go out with a few finance guys from Wall Street and realized they were no more sophisticated than my 20-year-old ass. But despite my now impressive expertise of the Island’s neighborhoods and demographics, my favorite shops to browse and windows to shop (only the ones where I was least harassed by salesgirls) — I was hardly a New Yorker yet.

Shit! I didn’t even know any good places to eat! Despite the 50/50 scholarship, the pleasure of having a graduate degree — forty five grand later — was leaving my ass seriously broke. For one, I could never join my classmates to their lunch outings. And because of my immigrant pride, when shooting down their invites, I would give them reasons related to my studious nature (and not because I was eating beans out of a can, in an unheated basement apartment, every night). So, for the entire twelve hour day spent on the Island, in between classes, I would have to last on a pitiful, homemade sandwich made out of a single slice of pumpernickel bread and a veggie burger, glued together with a thin spread of margarine and then cut in half. The meal was so embarrassing, I would do my best to chomp it down alone, in the staircase of a school wing unlikely to be visited by my classmates; or, if I was getting the shakes — inside a bathroom stall.

And this was with my two shitty, part-time jobs accounted for!

And because my education was costing me an arm and a leg — and possibly my sanity and longevity, in the end — boy! did I look forward to the end of every semester. Most of my colleagues would leave for their wholesome looking families — in Connecticut or wherever else purebred Americans had their happy childhoods — and there, I imagined, they sat around on their white-fenced porches and threw tennis balls for their pedigree golden retrievers to fetch. For Christmas, they retold their tales of crazy, filthy, overcrowded Manhattan while clutching giant cups of hot cocoa and apple sider in front of electric fireplaces, and waiting for the contributions of cash. In the summer, they’d allow their parents to pay their airfare for the pleasure of their company in the Caribbean or the Riviera.

I, on the other hand, would remain stuck in the Bronx.

(Well. It was either that, or going to visit my obese stepfather and endure his interrogations about what I was planning to do with my art school education, for which he was NOT paying.)

So, for the last two years of grad school, I stuck around on the Island. And whatever happy lives my classmates were deservingly pursuing elsewhere, I still thought I had it the best: I was free and young, in New York Fuckin’ City! Unthought of, for my long removed Russian family!

In those days, it was between me and the Island. Just the two of us. Finally, I would have the time and discipline to follow the schedule of free admission nights to all Manhattan museums. With no shame, I would join the other tourists waiting for discounted Broadway tickets at the Ticketmaster booth in Times Square. In the summer, I would gladly camp out in Central Park over night, so that I could get a glimpse of some Hollywood star giving Shakespeare a shot at the Delacorte. I read — any bloody book I wanted! — at the Central Branch, then blacken my fingers with the latest issue of Village Voice, while nearly straddling one of the lions up front. And in between my still happening shitty jobs, I would work on my tan on the Sheep Meadow; then peel on my uniform (still reeking of the previous night’s baskets of fries) and return for my graveyard shift in the Bronx.

Yes, it was MY time: to be young and oblivious to the hedonistic comforts of life. I was in the midst of a giant adventure — that forty five grand could buy me — and outside of my curiosity, all the other pleasures of life could wait.

“Now, what are you planning to do with your art school education, hon?” one of my former undergrad professors asked me during an impromptu date.

Snide! Ever so snide, he had a talent for making you feel not up to par — ever! If he were to try that on me today, I would flaunt my post-therapy terminology on boundaries and self-esteem. But back then, I was eating lunches inside the bathroom stalls of my Theatre Arts Building and wearing a button name tag for work, at nighttime. So, I would endure the condescending interrogations over a cup of some bullshit organic soup he’d insist I ordered — and for which I would pray he would offer to pay later, as well.

“Well. I guess you could always teach,” he’d say while packing up to leave for his rent-controlled apartment on the Upper East Side. (Whom did he have to fuck in order to live there for the last two decades?)

He had a point though: New York didn’t need another girl with her romantic dreams of love and starlet success. New York — could do just fine without me.

But still: It was MY time! MY youth in the city! His — was long gone, and I supposed it was reason enough to despise me.

But how ever unrealistic were my pursuits — and how ever hard was the survival — I still had plenty of curiosity in me to give it all a fair try.

She had arrived late, but what else was expected? She was a woman. A beautiful woman.

It was obvious it took her a while to put this whole thing together last night, through a careful choosing of details: a negotiation of her tastes, her moods; the senses. I wondered if while getting dressed, she daydreamed of a specific man she wanted to impress, as women of my age often do. Or, if she simply entertained an overall possibility of endless love (as we, romantics, must still insist on doing).

A woman whose abandonment of vanity would probably mean the very death of her, she was better dressed for an audience at a polo match, also attended by The Royal Family, than a staged reading at a black box theatre. First: There was the white hat adorned with a satin ribbon and a silver rhinestone brooch. And immediately, last night, the brooch got caught in the stage lights, and it began going berserk with rainbow reflections. So did the giant ring that took over two of her fingers on the dainty left hand.

“Holy shit!” I thought. “Is this broad decked out in diamonds?! Damn.”

The hat alone was enough to demand the attention of the audience. But the coat of the same egg-foam color was a thing of beauty. Most likely custom-made from cashmere, it could send the mind into a nostalgic trip through the old days — the days of women like Audrey, Jackie and Liz — to the era when things like that were extremely important: The details.

Gingerly, as if trying to not attract any attention, she slipped passed the front row of the auditorium and took a seat. But whom was she kidding? She was impossible not to notice! For it was obvious, that it took a long while to put this whole thing together last night — through a careful choosing of details. And I suddenly caught myself wanting to be nearer her, just to learn the aroma of her perfume, to figure out her story.

She had to walk slowly: By now, the broad was most likely in the seventh decade of her life. Be it her slow pace, her ability to be the center of attention, or her esteem, I was sure none of us let her slip by unnoticed. The hat remained on her head for the rest of the night, radiating with rainbow rays from its brooch. And for the next hour, I continued stealing glances at her.

Under the coat, she wore… a sweat suit. (I know!)

But then again, it wasn’t one of those mass-made, one-size-fits-all fleece numbers with rubber bands around its ankles. No, this thing was fluffy and pink. It had a strange resonance to the days of the young Britney Spears: Something a woman of my age would purchase from a Victoria’s Secret. Although a definite mismatch to her outer ensemble, the suit was well fitted to her small frame. Even this, I bet, was chosen carefully, last night.

A pair of white nursing shoes wrapped the picture, and I bet it was a small tragedy for this woman — this beautiful woman — to obey the mandatory change in her footwear. Because by now, the broad was most likely in the seventh decade of her life; and it was a choice between vanity and a broken hip. Yet still, these shoes — were immaculate: A carefully chosen detail.

The detail of her stubborn warring against time — against her aging.

The details of beauty and class, resonant of the old times when such details were very important.

After the show, I lost sight of her, last night. In the ladies’ room, I examined my own reflection: My fitted black sweater dress had been chosen quickly that evening. I was running late, so I yanked the first thing that didn’t need ironing off the hanger. But how could I not have seen the gazillion bits of lint all over its front panel? My hair hadn’t been brushed since the morning: Was I going for the nonchalant tousled look? It wasn’t working. (My shoes though: My shoes were perfect.)

Inside the stall I chose, it smelled like rose water and pepper. Not bad.

“Is there any toilet paper?” a tiny voice came through the wall of the partition.

I looked at shoes of the woman in the stall: They were the pair of white nursing shoes, immaculately chosen. I froze: Was that a rhetorical question? Or did she need help?

I knew: Dignity — was the very life of her; perhaps, all that was left of it. Through carefully chosen details — like this pepper-flowery perfume — she tended to her beauty, to defeat time. To defeat her aging. But the child-like helplessness set in, regardless her effort. And so, I stumbled, not knowing how to give her a hand without any charity; without offending her dignity.

I waited.

The tiny voice came back in a few minutes:

“Could you spare me some toilet paper?”

“Sure, sure, sure!” I rummaged around my stall.

I handed her a wad of paper over the partition.

“There are actually some rolls on your window sill,” I said, noticing the line-up above the egg-foam colored hat, with a brooch still going berserk with rainbow reflections under the bathroom light.

“I’ll take this,” the tiny voice said, and I felt the giant ring on her dainty left hand brush against my thumb.

They wait for me at the agreed-upon intersections in San Francisco, at New York delis, or at coffee shops — when in LA-LA. Some hear me speeding by, in search of parking, while simultaneously texting them: “b there in a min.” They watch me march into a joint, with my hair pulled back. (Unless traveling long distances up the coast, with all the windows rolled down, I keep that mane tamed at all costs.) I walk into my rendezvous, smiling at the clerks and saying hello to strangers; then, I scan the room for my beloveds.

I see them and immediately move in for a hug:

“It’s been so long. So happy to see you. Ah.”

I wrap myself with their bodies: I am not big on personal spaces between beloveds.

And when that’s all done, I start dumping my loads onto the nearby chairs, peeling off my purses and sweaters. I’m the type of a broad who carries a first-aid kit at the bottom of her endless bag. A nail file. A pair of scissors. A tampon (always!). A dozen hairpins. And a sewing kit: Never know when you may need one. And you bet your sweet ass, I have a notebook somewhere in there, as well. I just have to look for it.

“Well, maybe I left it in the car.”

I don’t even own one of those dainty purses I see other girls carry on their forearms into clubs. Those things always make me wonder about the gap between the purpose they’re meant to represent and their actual functionality. It’s a metaphor gone awry. A promise meant to be disappointing.

But then again, the lesser the load — the lighter the female, right?

Perhaps. But I doubt it.

In my defense, with time — with age — I’ve gotten significantly lighter, it seems. It wasn’t a determined decision to drop the endless self-flagellation ceremonies of my 20s. Instead, they just sort of slipped out of my daily routines; giving room to more decisiveness or to very tired surrender. Having realized I’m merely an impossible debater to defeat, I stay out of arguments — with myself.

And so, I’ve gotten significantly lighter. And so have my baggages.

I flop into the chair, across from the face I have now loved for ages, and I let down my mane:

“Ah. Can I get you something to drink?”

It’s a habit that just won’t go away:

I examine the needs of my beloveds before I check up on my own.

But they’re fine. My people — are always fine. They are resilient. Strong and competent, never helpless. And even if they’re not fine — that’s fine too; because if ever they ask me for help, I never go telling on them. And neither do I ever mention it again.

“Seriously. Don’t mention it. My honor!” I say, as if threatening.

Love comes with no ties attached.

We begin to talk: A quick game of catching up with the lapsed time. A survival of our separations. If it were up to me, I would have all of my beloveds live with me in a commune: Some Victorian house balancing on a cliff above the ocean, with a menu of attics and basements, and hiding places for their selection. And at night, we would gather at a giant wooden table in the middle of an orchard, and we would search our oversized bags — and baggages — for nighttime stories and lovely fairytales about surrender.

But my people — are vagabonds and gypsies; and they go off to conquer their dreams, and to defeat their fears, on the way.

After enough is said to make me want to have a drink or to toast, I finally get up from the chair and start making my way to the counter, smiling at the clerk, again. In a couple of steps though, I look back, flip my mane and say:

“Sure you don’t want anything?”

Equipped with replenishing elixirs and an item in place of bread that we can break together, I come back to the table, rummage through my purse for a napkin and jumpstart the next round of storytelling. And I guarantee, most of the time, these are stories of broken loves and departed lovers.

But my people are fine, of course. They are resilient. Carefully, they process their losses; and they start dreaming of the next adventure. The next love. The next story.

“I’ll drink to that,” I say and tip my mane back while chugging down my drink.

When it’s my turn, however, my stories don’t come out with an obvious ending. Instead, they offer endless lessons and questions. For years, for decades, I have been known to mourn my lovers. I flip each story on its head; and as if yet another endless bag of mine, I rummage through it for details and conclusions.

And that’s when my comrades try to put an end to it:

“Don’t dwell on the past,” they say, and they go to the counter for a refill.

I don’t really know what that means:

None of my stories are ever put to rest. And neither are my loves.

Instead, they bounce around, at the bottom of my endless baggage, waiting to be pulled out the next time I am in the midst of rummaging for words. Which must be why I retell each tale so many times, committing it to my own memory and to the memory of my beloveds.

So, dwelling on the past: I don’t really mind that, as long as I don’t dwell in it. And in my defense, I have gotten lighter, with time, and with age. And so have my baggages.

“I want… I want… What is it that I want?” she was squeezing herself into the corner of a vintage, peach-colored chair that couldn’t have been a better throne to her feminine divinity.

She scanned her eyes across the tiny room she’d made her home, as if the answer were somewhere around there: Was it under this tiny bed that she’d surrounded with her art and nature? Or had it fallen out of these mismatching picture frames in various degrees of hanging on and leaning against the walls, as if Frida Kahlo herself had been living, working, pacing here? Had she slipped it, by a forgetful accident, into the unfinished pack of cigarette on her windowsill — the only visible sign of her insomnia and self-destruction, committed in the name of the departed, then turned back into her art; her nature.

“I want to be adored! Because I — I adore!”

This entire evening I had been watching this face — and all that hair — and her gentle grace; and I had been wondering: Was I just like this, in my own youth? Or did I possess more corners: All anxiety about my self-sufficiency and my self-enough-ness?

I’ve arrived here from a harder history, you see. For centuries, it had been unforgiving to our women’s youth and tenderness. Back where I came from, we worshiped our men, but only behind the closed doors of our bedrooms. For the rest of the day, it was a nation filled with female fighters, women-survivors –hustlers — who assumed enemies in every living soul (especially other women, younger and more tender) and who are most content when standing in breadlines.

But by now, I had paid my dues around here. I had suffered and survived the often ungraceful — and sometimes undignified — existence of an immigrant. I had done my share of standing in different lines to get approved as worthy; only to rush myself back to the university library and learn at double the speed, just so that I could be more than that: Just so I could be equal. And I worked. I worked hard, harder than most of my colleagues, American or foreign-born, like me. And only behind the closed doors of my bedroom would I worship my men: For the rest of the day, I was just an Amazon, refusing to let them in on any of my softness.

“I want to be adored,” she repeated, then looked in my direction. Had I seen it laying around her artist’s quarters, by any chance: This adoration that she deserved and was willing to return ten-fold?

“You know?” she asked, then didn’t wait for my answer and said, “You do know.”

My comrades and enemies had so far been unanimous at calling me out on my generosity. In my motha’s fashion, I tend to grant it upfront, as if to back up my name with it. My name: Truth. (Or Faith, depending on which language you speak, or whom you ask around here.)

But even that has altered a little bit with age and cynicism: I am slightly more withdrawn these days; more careful. Because I have yet to raise a child, so I cannot give it all away. And because I myself haven’t finished dreaming yet, so I need my strength. Because these days, if a lover’s departure must be easy at all, it is only if I hadn’t lost myself in him. So, I take my time now. I only meet my people half-way. And I wait: I wait to see if I am — to them — indeed, the adored one, too.

Some souls though! They still know how to draw it out of me: this uncensored generosity, this kindness that hangs in the back of my first name, like the middle initial “V” by which I had been called for most of my life (in all languages). And she — the soul resembling the past child in me and the future one, at the same time — had been like this from the first embrace she’d once decided to grant me. Never once had I caught myself wondering if I was going out too far on the limb, for her sake. Because I knew that her need — was not all consuming; that I wouldn’t lose myself in it (even though, I’d much rather, at times). And in her case, my generosity felt returned ten-fold: The more I gave, the more it replenished me.

So, despite the exhaustion (that this late at night begins to feel like defeat), I had shown up to her home. Other women had come and gone already. I could tell by the variety of the pink shades of lipstick they had left of champagne glasses. A couple were in the midst of departing as soon as I arrived:

“Here! You look like you need a lot of space,” they seemed to be saying while peeling on their coats, and sweater, and ponchos, and shawls.

And I did. I did need (even though I had come here only to give). I immediately dominated her bed. I took over her library, dreaming of the day I could find my own name leaning on it, sideways. And after the last woman departed, I took over the kitchen too: Putting away the disorder, just so in the morning, she would find a clean slate.

She chirped behind me — my darling sparrow! — about whether on not to discard this aging chunk of cheese, or whether or not to dismiss this old lover. Occasionally, I would look back — at that face and all that hair — and wonder: Was I just like this, in my own youth?

But then, suddenly, I blurted out:

“Did the other women bring you food?” My words came out commanding and little bit too loud. She got silent. I landed:

“Oh my! So sorry! I’m so sorry!” Wiping my hands on the towel with force, like all the women in my family do, I gushed: “I sound like my motha. I’m so sorry!”

But her face showed no evidence of having been undermined or offended.

Instead, she rather seemed tickled by this hard softness of mine — an underbelly she must’ve suspected long ago (or why else would she decide to grant me her embrace?). She was in the midst of being adored — by me — and she knew it. She adored it.

And I, suddenly finding myself standing out on a limb, didn’t mind this incomparable generosity of mine: Because it was already replenishing me, ten-fold.

As every woman I know, I have the type of relationship with my “motha” that makes me smile sardonically when speaking of her and roll my eyes back (far back enough to lose my contacts in my skull) when hearing other daughters bitch and moan. “My life had stood—a loaded gun,” wrote a suffragette nearly two centuries ago. I could easily misquote her, and on the topic of mother say: “My love had stood—a loaded gun.” (Want irony? Mother’s name does indeed translate to “Love” from Russian). Or I could accept that the trials and tribulations woven into my life by my mother’s hands (her hands: always baby-soft, manicured but with a grip) have made my life worthy of storytelling. Our three-decade long love story is one of an absurdist comedy, an exhausting epic, and a heartbreaking tragedy. She is my rock of Sisyphus. My Ariadne’s thread. My Pandora’s box. My cross. My heart. My very Love.

To this day, she sneaks into every character of my fiction whom I adore and despise equality. Every woman of tremendous beauty and charm that I think up (or fall in love with on a daily basis on the street) is—Mother. Before I am aware, I hear her roaring laughter in my pages, her passive-aggressive sigh and overly dramatic delivery. I see her flirtatious hair-flips and shoulder jerks, and the darting of her feline eyes. Her killer sexuality that makes men act like moronic children is not one I could’ve thought up as an author. As I age into my womanhood, I observe her lines come through on my face and hips, like a superimposed image. As I mature as an artist, I accept that she is the main source of my inspiration and work—the very point of it all; and the sooner I surrender to that, the sooner my art will flourish. Mother: had not only granted me my life—she granted me my livelihood.

All this—is just a prelude, my comrades. A little 101 on my Love.

The other day, with mother on a speaker phone in my car, I had to pull off the road; for this rambunctious, loud, dangerously charming woman had me in tears from her bit on dating. Regardless never having read my blog, mother had decided to contribute. Nyet, nyet: More accurately, she demanded her own column! To this wisdom on her dating life as an older woman, I subject you, my readers; for you—as I—do not have a choice to avoid my “motha.” (Although I do wish, you could hear these words for yourself, heavily laced with a Russian accent, directly out of the woman’s gorgeous mouth—and you’d lose your shit as well):

I. “The second you call a man your “baby”—he starts shitting his pant.” Mother was never a nurturing type of woman, as I have learned in my own childhood. She is sort of like Stalin when it comes to love: The more they fear you—the better they love you. It is understandable then that she never catered to her man; and one certain way to make my mother retract her affection or watch her phenomenal hips sway side to side as she walks away and leaves your ass for good—is to act needy. Herein lies the lesson for the mankind: Unless sick or on your deathbed, don’t let a woman see your weakness!

II. More on that topic: “I am not mothering another human being—unless it comes out of my vagina.” In my childhood, my mother had reiterated a few times that I had stolen all of her love. Her love was very tough, but apparently—it was love. Anyway: No man, she said, including my father, could ever claim her heart—for it already belonged to me. Although I have yet to experience my own motherhood, I agree with this unforgiving philosophy: A child should always remain a parent’s priority. Add to that the priority of nurturing and perfecting the self, and I predict that when a mother, my hands will be full. However, this is not a single-edged sword because I will demand the same from my man: When raising a child together, grant most of your love to our offspring—and take care of your own shit (for I have neither the time nor the patience to do it for you).

III. “It’s too late to be switching to mineral water—when your liver is falling out.” Like mother like daughter, I too possess high expectations when it comes to my man’s health. However, my opinion had to be developed with time; and as my last love story proves, I should’ve listened to my mother sooner. Unlike hers, my belief has little to do with the man’s appearance though, but everything—with his longevity for the sake of our children (and consequentially, for the sake of our partnership): One’s health is one’s own responsibility.

IV. Finally, because mother was never the one to beat around the bush, here is the best summary of her high dating standards: “If he gave me a tub of borscht in wartime, I still wouldn’t fuck him.” Clearly, authentically and to the point—that’s the gist of mom. I wish I could think this shit up on my own, my comrades, but because I can’t, live and learn from the woman: Do not lower your expectations, for if you do—you alone will suffer the consequences.

She is good, ain’t she? But as I have learned for myself, mother is good in small doses. So, process these four bits of enlightenment for now, my comrades; and start jonesing for her return.